Books from Denmark

FINN HALFDAN is a crime reporter on several television documentaries. He had his debut with Every Thing Secret 2015 (Et nødvendigt offer), for which he won the Danish Crime Academy’s Debutant Award 2016, and he was short-listed for The Copenhagen Book fair’s Debutant Award in the same year. The Innocent Dead is Halfdan’s second novel.

Keep an eye on debut novelist Finn Halfdan... He sure can weave a well-paced, thoughtful plot.

— Politiken

BY FINN HALFDAN

The Innocent Dead

CRIME NOVEL

A spontaneous romantic weekend at Kullen, in Sweden, takes a dramatic turn for Maya Leander, when her lover Nicholas is found murdered immediately after their return to Copenhagen. The police suspects and apprehends Maya as their primary suspect – her lover’s murderer.

With the help of a defence attorney Maya is soon free to go, but the suspicion lingers, as she returns to her job at a local newspaper, to report on a case of bribery in the city council.

Shaken by the murder charge, Maya launches her own investigation into the mysterious homicide. But someone is attempting to deter her from finding out what happened, and while the criminal investigators are set on locking her up, the police management seems more interested in dropping the case.

Maya begins to realize that Nicholas perhaps was not as innocent, as she had first assumed.Investigating his past causes Maya to return to her own past, to the time, when she worked for a humanitarian aid organisation and fought to save the world.

Now she is fighting to save herself, and she must fight hard. Her investigation has unleashed dark forces, she never even knew existed.